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History

40,000 BP

cave inhabited by man.

1954

archaeological work by Tom Harrison, curator of the Sarawak Museum began.

1958

a human skull was found.

1971

cave declared a National Monument.

Description

Niah Great Cave is a system of caves with numerous entrances.
It is named Gua Besar (Great Cave), but this name is not very
distinctive, so Niah Great Cave or simply Niah Cave is more common.

Niah Great Cave is famous for two things.
First it was inhabited by man for 40,000 years.
Second, the cave is full of birds, especially the Black-nest Swiftlets.
The locals collect the nests of this bird to cook birds' nest soup.

The cave is inhabited by three species of swiftlets and by bats.
The thousands of animals produce an enormous amount of guano, which is also
collected by the local Penan tribesmen.
The Gua Pedagang (Trader Cave) is used by the local merchants as a
trading spot for the swiftlet birdnest.
There are remnants of huts and sheds erected by the birdnest traders during the
last 50 years.
The heyday of the birdnest trading was between 1950 and 1980, but evenn today
raw birdnests are sold between RM 3,000 and RM 7,500 per kilogram.
As a result the locals are climbing up 20 metres high overhanging walls on
wooden or bamboo ladders with a torch tied to their forehead.

Gua Besar (Great Cave), as the name suggests, is an enormous cavern.
Like other caves on Sarawak it has extremely big chambers and passages.
The cave system has eight entrances.

The west entrance, also called West Mouth, is an important archaeological
site.
The enormous cave mouth was inhabited over millennia.
Excavations were made by the Sarawak Museum and numerous finds are on
display there.
The finds included coins and pottery of the T'ang Dynasty.
Probably the most important find of the cave was made in 1958, when a human
skull was found.
Found in deep (and old) layers it was called Deep Skull and dated to be
about 42,000 years old.
It is the oldest Homo sapiens remain ever discovered outside of Africa.
This fact resulted in the Southern Dispersal Route theory, which says
that early migration of modern humans from southern Africa took place along the
coastlines of Africa, Arabia and India to Australia and Melanesia between about
70,000 and 45,000 years ago.
However, the number of remains is low and the theory thus supported by rather
few facts.

The cave visit starts at the Park headquarters, then Niah river is crossed by
motorboat.
From here a 4km planwalk leads to the cave.
The cave is entered at West Mouth.
After a look at the excavation site the cave behind is entered.
Next stop is, where the bird's nest collectors harvest bird's nest.
They attached belay poles to the wall and ceiling to be able to climb up to the
nests.
Next stop is Moon Cave, where a beam of sunlight shines through an opening at
the roof.
After a dark section with bats we reach the eastern entrance.